Sprint to Buy Vonage?
With so much talk about whether Vonage will do an IPO or simply raise another round of money, ZDNet's Russell Shaw throws out another scenario: Vonage being acquired by Sprint. Russell offers seven different reasons for why such a deal makes sense, ranging from Sprint's lack of a residential VOIP service to its strong consumer presence in the wireless business. I definitely agree with his thesis that Vonage will taken out - probably this year as consumers get more comfortable with VOIP. From what I can surmise, I don't think Vonage really wants to go through the hassle of going public. If it was truly interested in this route, the company would have probably done it already to capitalize on the hype surrounding VOIP. Instead, Vonage is probably playing a waiting game to see who jumps first. Will it be SBC/AT&T to beef up the struggling CallVantage business? Will Verizon step in to augment VoiceWing? Or will Comcast come to Vonage's “rescue”? In any event, Russell raises a very legitimate possibility.
